Breaking: Trump to Keep Protections on DREAMERS

BREAKING: Trump to keep protections on DREAMERS — Here are the new immigration directives

February 21, 2017

DHS has apparently released their new immigration memos and one thing they are doing is keeping in place protections on Dreamers:

Here’s more on what the new immigration memos say:

FOX NEWS – Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly moved Tuesday to implement a host of immigration enforcement changes ordered by President Trump, directing agency heads to hire thousands more officers, end so-called “catch-and-release” policies and begin work on the president’s promised U.S.-Mexico border wall.

“It is in the national interest of the United States to prevent criminals and criminal organizations from destabilizing border security,” Kelly wrote in one of two memos released Tuesday by the department.

The memos follow up on Trump’s related executive actions from January and, at their heart, aim to toughen immigration enforcement.

The changes would spare so-called “dreamers.” On a conference call with reporters, a DHS official stressed that the directives would not affect Obama-era protections for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and others given a reprieve in 2014. But outside those exemptions, Kelly wrote that DHS “no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”

A DHS official said the agencies are “going back to our traditional roots” on enforcement.

Expanding the 287(g) program, which allows participating local officers to act as immigration agents – and had been rolled back under the Obama administration

Starting the planning, design and construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall

Hiring 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers

Hiring 5,000 Border Patrol agents

Ending “catch-and-release” policies under which illegal immigrants subject to deportation potentially are allowed to “abscond” and fail to appear at removal hearings

It’s unclear what timelines the secretary is setting for some of these objectives, and what budgetary and other constraints the department and its myriad agencies will face. In pursuing an end to “catch-and-release,” one memo called for a plan with the Justice Department to “surge” immigration judges and asylum officers to handle additional cases.

While congressional Republicans have vowed to work with Trump to fund the front-end costs associated with his promised border wall, the same memo also hints at future efforts to potentially use money otherwise meant for Mexico – following on Trump’s repeated campaign vow to make Mexico pay for the wall. The secretary called for “identifying and quantifying” sources of aid to Mexico, without saying in the memo how that information might be used.

Apparently these were released without any pomp and circumstance, so forget about the live stream I had posted earlier.

By Judson Berger
Published February 21, “It is in the national interest of the United States to prevent criminals and criminal organizations from destabilizing border security,” Kelly wrote in one of two memos released Tuesday by the department.

The changes would spare so-called "dreamers." On a conference call with reporters, a DHS official stressed that the directives would not affect Obama-era protections for illegal immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and others given a reprieve in 2014. But outside those exemptions, Kelly wrote that DHS “no longer will exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement.”

A DHS official said the agencies are “going back to our traditional roots” on enforcement.

Expanding the 287(g) program, which allows participating local officers to act as immigration agents – and had been rolled back under the Obama administration

Starting the planning, design and construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall

Hiring 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and officers

Hiring 5,000 Border Patrol agents

Ending “catch-and-release” policies under which illegal immigrants subject to deportation potentially are allowed to “abscond” and fail to appear at removal hearings

It’s unclear what timelines the secretary is setting for some of these objectives, and what budgetary and other constraints the department and its myriad agencies will face. In pursuing an end to “catch-and-release,” one memo called for a plan with the Justice Department to “surge” immigration judges and asylum officers to handle additional cases.

While congressional Republicans have vowed to work with Trump to fund the front-end costs associated with his promised border wall, the same memo also hints at future efforts to potentially use money otherwise meant for Mexico – following on Trump’s repeated campaign vow to make Mexico pay for the wall. The secretary called for “identifying and quantifying” sources of aid to Mexico, without saying in the memo how that information might be used.

Mexican officials repeatedly have said they will not pay for a border barrier. DHS said it has identified initial locations to build a wall where current fencing is not effective, near El Paso, Texas; Tucson, Ariz.; and El Centro, Calif.

The DHS directives come as the Trump White House continues to work on rewriting its controversial executive order suspending the U.S. refugee program as well as travel from seven mostly Muslim countries. The order was put on hold by a federal court, and Trump’s team is said to be working on a new measure.

The directives also come as the Trump administration faces criticism from Democratic lawmakers and immigration advocacy groups for recent ICE raids of illegal immigrants.

DHS officials on Tuesday’s conference call stressed that they are operating under existing law and once again shot down an apparently erroneous news report from last week claiming National Guard troops could be utilized to round up illegal immigrants. That will not happen, an official said.

“We’re going to treat everyone humanely and with dignity, but we are going to execute the laws of the United States,” a DHS official said on the conference call.

He did promise day one. It doesn't appear it will end other than when legislation legalizes them. A magnet for millions of others through family, births, etc.

The DACA is continuing every day, new applicants and renewals, as we know and many are getting legalization and a path to citizenship through Advanced Parole.

I hope you (and I) are wrong on that, but most of what we've seen so far points to that being the plan. The biggest indicator to-date, in my opinion, is the fact that the administration hasn't immediately ended taking applications. From what I understand halting the acceptance of applications wouldn't require anymore than a memo from Secretary Kelly.

Yes, MW, the President could have easily instructed Homeland Security to end any new applications and the renewals for DACA. It would have been a positive move. The numbers have increased by thousands according to average daily numbers.

During his 77-minute, free-wheeling news conference on Thursday, President Trump said something interesting on the subject of immigration enforcement that easily got lost in the outrage over the obsession about "fake news." Perhaps the immigration hardliner is starting to become more pragmatic, at least on immigration.

Asked by reporters about what he plans to do with his predecessor's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Trump gave an entirely conflicted response. In effect, he hasn't made a decision about the policy one way or the other because it's such a consequential one to make.

"This is a very, very difficult for me, one of the most difficult subjects," he said. "You have these incredible kids," who came into the United States with their parents at a young age and who would be removed from the country if DACA were abolished.

Yet keeping the program intact would likely be greeted by immigration hardliners on Capitol Hill, pro-immigration enforcement groups that supported Trump throughout his campaign, and millions of his voters as a betrayal of what they thought they were getting from the no-nonsense Trump: someone who would bring law and order back to the U.S. regardless of how negative the politics or how much of a killing he would take in the press.

The last thing Trump wants to be pejoratively referred to is as a typical, spineless, duplicitous politician, the very people in the political establishment he successfully campaigned against.

On DACA, Trump is indeed presented with an enormously complicated choice. Any decision he signs off on will be fodder for the political pundits and the news media that he despises with such animosity. Either let the roughly 750,000 young people who are enrolled in the program to continue working and studying in the U.S. without worrying about deportation, or terminate the prosecutorial discretion embodied in the policy and remove them.

He ought to take the first choice, not only for the obvious moral and compassionate reasons, but for practical reasons as well. The vast majority of these kids and young adults are contributing to our economy. It would also allow federal law enforcement to free up resources that would be more wisely levied against criminals who are much higher priorities.

On its face, DACA is an act of pragmatism just as it's an act of compassion. Many of the "Dreamers" have known no other upbringing, no other culture, and no environment other than the U.S. Some were already working low-paying jobs and being paid under the table by their employers for fear of attracting the government's attention.

Yes, they crossed the border illegally, but they weren't doing so of their own volition. When you're a kid, you don't get much influence over family decisions. When your parents move, you follow along. Dreamers are, in effect, Americans like the rest of us, just without the papers to prove it.

It depends on how one defines “keep.” Donald Trump argued against Barack Obama’s unilateral actions on immigration, including the DAPA and expanded DACA programs, both of which got put into limbo by federal courts. When asked in last week’s press conference about DACA and the so-called “dreamers” — children brought into the country illegally by their parents — Trump replied that his immigration policy would show “great heart” in those cases. Today, CBS reports that Trump’s new immigration policy keeps DACA in place.

Or perhaps better put, it doesn’t explicitly eliminate it:

A source with knowledge of DHS planning said the documents are being finalized by the White House and could be released as early as Monday. It was originally scheduled to be released late last week.
One provision would direct the immediate return of Mexican immigrants who are apprehended along the border back home, pending the outcomes of their deportation hearings. The new procedures would allow for authorities to seek expedited deportation hearings.

The memos do not overturn the Obama 2012 immigration action that created the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA has deferred deportations for people who came to the U.S. illegally as children and has provided work permits to more than 750,000 immigrants.

The plan also attempts to deter the arrival of unaccompanied children who have come over the border to the U.S. from Mexico and Central America over the last three years. Under the new policies, their parents could be prosecuted if they are found to have paid smugglers to bring the children across the border.

The new procedures would allow authorities to seek expedited deportation proceedings, currently limited to undocumented immigrants who have been in the country for two weeks or less, to anyone who has been in the country for up to two years.

Another new provision would be to immediately return Mexican immigrants who are apprehended at the border back home pending the outcomes of their deportation hearings, rather than house them on U.S. property, an effort that would save detention space and other resources.

The guidelines also aim to deter the arrival of a growing wave of 155,000 unaccompanied minors who have come from Mexico and Central America over the past three years. Under the new policies, their parents in the United States could be prosecuted if they are found to have paid smugglers to bring the children across the border.

The new rules also expand the targets for deportation from just the worst offenders — the Obama policy — to any illegal immigrant who has broken other laws while in the US. That policy has already gone into effect, as seen from news reports over the past two weeks, and is patterned after the “broken windows” method of law enforcement used by Rudy Giuliani in New York City.

But senior Trump aides are holding fast to their goal of strengthening immigration enforcement, the president’s chief campaign promise. They have examined at least two options that would not directly involve Trump, according to two immigration policy advisors to the White House: a lawsuit brought by states, and new legal guidance that details who is a priority for deportation.

Under that option, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, a vocal critic of deportation relief as a senator, would direct Department of Justice lawyers to review the program, which issues two-year work permits to people who qualify and keeps them from being categorized as deportation priorities.

If the Justice Department determines that DACA is not legal or is no longer a responsible use of prosecutorial discretion, the Department of Homeland Security would be instructed to stop awarding and renewing work permits.

Another possible path involves the courts. A handful of governors are considering a challenge patterned on the 2014 lawsuit filed by several conservative state officials against the Obama administration’s expansion of deportation protections. If they sue, Sessions could instruct his lawyers not to defend the program in court, exposing it to indefinite suspension by a federal judge.

It could be even simpler than either of those two options, thanks to the precedent set by the Obama administration:

Deportation relief could also be ended “the same way it was begun,” said Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and the architect of multiple state and local laws aimed at immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly could simply instruct U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to stop issuing work permits, much as Obama’s first secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, created DACA with a memo in 2012.

If Trump really doesn’t want to end DACA, then none of these will ever come into play. If Trump wants DACA ended but without his fingerprints on the axe, then the only real option is to get states to sue in federal court. That’s tricky, too, because a Sessions decision not to defend the program will look as though Trump at least implicitly endorses that approach — and it might not be enough to get a favorable ruling. Other states and outside organizations would flood the court with amicus briefs, and a judge might wonder why the administration chose to default rather than just use the authority they already have on their own to end the program.

One other possibility exists, too. Not long ago, the Trump administration was reported to favor a bipartisan, comprehensive immigration reform package that would finally resolve all issues. If they want to drive Democrats into a bargain, they might use DACA as leverage, which means that they’d need to keep it alive for a little while longer. After four years of Democratic lectures about the “dreamers,” it might be the biggest chip the White House has to get the kind of deal they want. Since they can cancel the program at any time, there’s not much risk in letting it operate for a while longer to see how much that leverage buys them.